"Students who want to learn" will decide whether to start the announced hunger strike only after the meeting with the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić
Student of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Belgrade Milos Pavlovic he stated that the group he leads, which presents itself as "Students who want to learn", received an invitation to a meeting with the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, for Monday, June 2 at 11 a.m., which she will accept, and after which she will announce the final decision on whether she will go on a previously announced hunger strike.
Pavlović said that the delegation of "Students who want to learn" will respond to Vučić's invitation and will go to that meeting, N1 reported.
He added that "Students who want to study" "out of great respect for the President of the Republic and out of respect for the support he has given them so far" will announce their final decision regarding further steps on Monday after the meeting with Vučić.
Pavlović reminded that the group he leads announced on May 26 that they will go on a hunger strike if all faculties do not start working by June 1.
"We will all go to our colleges"
He also stated that the president of the Serbian Progressive Party, Miloš Vučević, visited them on Saturday evening and asked them not to make a final decision on going on strike before meeting with Vučić.
Pavlović pointed out that "Students who want to study" were "shocked by the events of the past few days" and stated that their colleagues Vladimir Balac and Luka Lalošević were prevented from entering their faculties.
"All of us will go to our faculties, because we have the absolute right to do so," said Pavlović.
He told the students in the blockade that they had ruined their year.
"Don't ruin the rest of our lives," Pavlović added.
The evolution of "Cacilend"
"Students who want to learn" started setting up a camp in Pionisrki Park around the building of the General Secretariat of the President of the Republic on March 6, in response to the large protest that the blockade students announced for March 15.
From March 6, in just a few days, and before the protest on March 15, Pionirski Park was filled with tents and people sleeping in them. The camp immediately got its colloquial name "Ćaciland".
"Students who want to learn" then announced that they had only one request - the unblocking of the faculty and the start of classes, and they presented that request directly to Vučić, who hosted them a few days after the establishment of "Ćaciland".
As the space in Pionirski Park was filled with tents, it became more and more obvious that they were mostly not attended by students, but by activists of the ruling party and extras, with the aim of creating the impression that the response of students in "Ćaciland" was massive. Journalists who tried to check if they were real students were rudely pushed away, and then stopped by the police.
"Fat" daily wages and the paramilitary
However, a journalist who introduced himself as a 28-year-old student managed to infiltrate and discovered that the people present in the makeshift camp were only paid to sit and lie down.
Per diems, which were paid exclusively in cash, ranged from 50 to 80 euros. It soon became clear that there were actually very few real students at the camp and that most were paid actors.
This became even more apparent when the "red berets", veterans of the JSO, appeared in the park. The arrival of JSO, the day before the anniversary of the assassination of former Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, was interpreted as a provocation, but also as an ominous warning.
In addition to alleged students and veterans of paramilitary formations, the day before the protest on March 15, "Ćaciland" is surrounded by dozens of tractors. Despite the presence of numerous policemen along the perimeter of the park, tractors were parked on the sidewalks and on the street in front of the Assembly, clearly violating the parking ban.
In certain zones, tractors were parked in double rows, forming a kind of defensive wall around "Ćaciland".
"They didn't want to trample the flowers"
That informal camp of "Students who want to learn" was additionally expanded to the road in front of the Serbian Parliament a few days after the "We don't give Serbia" rally organized by Vučić.
Large white tents were placed in front of the Serbian Parliament building, according to the statements of some residents of "Ćaciland" in order to expand that camp because "Students who want to study" allegedly did not want to put up tents in Pionirski Park in the parts "where there are flowers". Already at that time, it was announced that in addition to the students, there would also be farmers "who have been with them from the beginning" and veterans of the police and army. In the tents, an improvised floor was made with wooden pallets, they are equipped with plastic chairs and deckchairs. Around "Ćaciland", instead of the former tractors, a large number of mobile toilets are "parked".
Three requests
The situation regarding "Ćaciland" was unchanged after that, the citizens of Belgrade had already gotten used to the fact that traffic no longer worked in the very center of the city, and then Miloš Pavlović decided to go on the offensive on May 26.
At the press conference, he read out three demands and stated that if they are not met, "Students who want to learn" will start a hunger strike on June 1.
The first request is that all faculties in Serbia start working by June 1, and the second is the immediate initiation of moral, disciplinary and criminal-legal responsibility against "those persons who prevented our enjoyment of rights guaranteed by the constitution, starting from the right to education to the right to freedom of movement."
The third request is "to stop once and for all the fascist attacks on us and the threats that they will shelter us, remove us, exterminate us, call us mentally ill, because we want to get an education."
Read about the "Rise Serbia" protests in 32 cities in the blog of the weekly "Vreme".
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